


Some Things Stay

by Mysanthropist



Series: Breathe [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, Family, Gen, Growing Up, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:07:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23177425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mysanthropist/pseuds/Mysanthropist
Summary: Qrow and Yang and how to keep moving forward.// Set after V7E4
Relationships: Qrow Branwen & Yang Xiao Long, Ruby Rose & Yang Xiao Long, Summer Rose & Yang Xiao Long
Series: Breathe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1666198
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55





	Some Things Stay

Yang steps out into the frigid Atlas night and pulls her jacket closer. How Weiss survived out here with her scrawny frame, Yang will never understand. Probably all the hair and unrepressed anger. 

Uncle Qrow sits casually on a patch of artificial turf, the only sign of life in the otherwise deserted academy courtyard. Atlas students apparently take their curfews more seriously than Beacon students ever did even with the ever-present threat of Glynda Goodwitch. 

“So, what’d you want to talk about?” Yang asks as she drops down beside him, legs crossed. 

Qrow glances over with a raised eyebrow. “What, not even a hello first?” 

Yang snorts. “Hello, Uncle Qrow. How are you on this fine Atlas evening?” 

“Alive,” he replies with equal sarcasm. They share a grin and Yang relaxes. The message she received earlier that night asking if she _“had a sec to talk_ ” triggered memories of the other times in her life when an adult needed to talk, none good. 

“So,” Qrow continues, “I talked to Ruby earlier today.”

“At the graduation ceremony, right? I saw.” Yang frowns as she remembers the pensive look on Ruby’s face. “What’d you two talk about?”

“She was worried about keeping information from Ironwood.” 

“What’d you tell her?” 

“That I thought she was right to trust her instincts. Ruby’s really growing up.” 

“Yeah,” Yang agrees distractedly, her mind still stuck on the image of Ruby sitting alone in the bleachers. It reminds her of lunchtimes at Signal, when Ruby would doodle weapon designs and battle strategies on her own while everyone else chattered and laughed in clusters around her. 

Yang stirs out of her recollection when she hears Qrow clear his throat. He looks at her, the usual sarcasm in his expression replaced by startling sincerity. “We also talked about Summer. I think she’d be proud to see Ruby now. A real leader, just like her mom.” 

“It sucks that Ruby didn’t get to grow up with her,” Yang says, running a hand through her hair. Sighing, she adds, “ _I_ got to spend more time with her than Ruby did.” 

“Hey,” Qrows says, sharp. “Summer cared about you as much as she cared about Ruby.” He pushes forward without allowing Yang a moment to brace herself for what comes next. 

“She would be just as proud of you, Yang.” 

The words kindle a spark inside her. Not the vindication of being granted her huntress license or the exhilaration of landing the knock-out blow in an all-out brawl. Something calm. Yang wants to surrender to it, let the warmth consume her whole. But part of her holds back. A small, all-consuming emptiness, always teetering on the edge of weightlessness but unable to find release. 

Qrow seems to notice her subdued reaction and his smile dims in parallel. “You don’t believe me.”

“It’s not that. It’s just...” Yang looks down, hating herself for what she’s about to say, but feeling it all the same. “If Summer could be proud of me, then why wasn’t I enough for my actual mom?” 

Qrow nudges her playfully even as the smile slips entirely from his face. “Come on, we both know that Raven barely qualifies as your mom.” 

Yang laughs, empty.

“That doesn’t change the fact that she is.” 

Sometimes Yang wonders if everything she ever does, everything she will ever do, is just a bandage for that empty space where Raven cut herself out of her life and took part of Yang with her. 

“Raven,” Qrow starts, stops, then begins again, “No one was ever good enough for my sister, least of all herself. You need to understand that her choices reflect her own problems. Her own selfishness. Raven leaving was never about you, only her.”

“I _do_ understand.” Yang says, fists digging into her thighs. “I know her choices weren’t my fault, I just…I feel like I should have been able to do something to get her to stay.” 

Qrow sighs. His next words sound faraway. 

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, firecracker, but you can’t spend your whole life trying to get other people to change. Sometimes you need to cut your losses and move on.”

“Is that why you started working alone? Because you gave up?” Yang asks without thinking. She regrets the question immediately when Qrow laughs, low and humorless, and takes a long drink from his flask. “Shit. Sorry, I didn’t mean -”

Qrow waves her off and grimaces in distaste as he drops the canister to the ground with a _thunk_ , the empty metal rattling until it settles. “James got me some flavored seltzer but I gotta say, it’s not quite the same.” 

He hunches over, looking older than Yang’s ever seen. She remembers listening with rapture to the stories he told of the solitary huntsman gallivanting around the world to fight evil. Soaring skyscrapers, boisterous crowds, the sunshine, boundless and bright and free. Charmed, she and Ruby would scamper outside to fight imaginary villains until evening whisked away sunlight, Tai luring them back home with the smell of dinner and freshly baked cookies. 

She thinks of those stories now: the open roads, castaway villages, campfires casting shadows into nothingness. 

_Lonely_. 

“Yang, I know what you meant. I won’t lie to you. Having to make sacrifices is one of the hardest parts of a huntsman’s job. I’ve lost colleagues, friends.” He grins just barely and jostles her lightly. “No limbs, yet.” 

Yang laughs and shoves back with enough force that Qrow falls back with a light, “oof”. 

“Hey, that wasn’t an invitation!” He protests with an exaggerated show of rubbing his arm. Yang rolls her eyes as the laughter fades. 

She leans back, palms flat against the ground, and feels the artificial grass against her human hand, smooth, unlike the unruly fields she and Ruby played in as children. Her eyes cut to Qrow, distant despite the proximity. 

A bullhead passes overhead and dips down into the city beneath them. The metal hull shines against the hazy stars peppering the Atlas sky. They were brighter in Vale. 

_“Light pollution,” Blake had explained when Yang pointed this out. “All the industrialization and human activity washes out the stars.”_

_“Lovely,” Weiss grumbled as Ruby eyed her sympathetically. “Just another thing we ruined.”_

Yang exhales.

“This isn’t the same pep talk Ruby got,” she jokes. 

“Ruby’s got a lot on her plate,” Qrows replies, sympathetic but not apologetic. “You need to be there to help her make difficult decisions.”

Yang frowns. “I don’t know. Difficult decisions were always more Blake and Weiss’ thing.”

Qrow grunts and eyes her prosthetic arm meaningfully. “Doesn’t look like that to me.” 

Yang looks down at it, too, the metal glinting under the scattered light from the academy. She shakes her head and smiles ruefully. 

“It wasn’t a difficult decision,” Yang says softly. “It’s one of the easiest things I’ve ever done.” 

“And the stupidest,” Qrow adds with no malice. Yang shrugs. Probably. I would do it again.” 

“Yeah.” Yang glimpses the edge of a tight smile on Qrow’s face as he looks away. “I bet you would.”

They sit and watch nothing and everything. Atlas moves even at night, a perpetual beat of human activity which marches the city steadily forward. Yang scoots closer so their arms brush and bumps shoulders, catching the small, surprised part of Qrow’s mouth before it settles into a smirk. 

“You know, Yang,” Qrow says, eyes on the horizon. “Ruby didn’t get to grow up with Summer, but she had something just as good.”

Yang blinks, curious. “What?”

“You.” 


End file.
